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Tanking 101: Pull School: Bear Ranged Pulls

Feral druids have few options for ranged pulling. Assuming you are pulling in bear form you only have 2.

One is to use ‘Growl’ on the target. This is a poor idea. It does no real threat and it puts your only taunt on cooldown. It does have a 30 yard range though so if your other option is not ready and you really need to pull it works.

Growl you get at lvl 10 along with bear form. You get Faerie Fire (feral) at level 18.

Range:

Growl: 30 yards

Faerie Fire (feral): 30 yard

Additional effects:

Faerie Fire does damage that is 1+0.15 times your attack power. At high level this is a nice little hit. In bear form it also does extra threat. These two effects make it a good ranged pull. Faerie Fire applies a 5 minute duration 5% armor debuff. It also prevents stealth for that time.

Growl causes a very very short forced attack effect (3 seconds) that is not exclusive.

Application:

Using either of these is very simply. You move to within 30 yards, target something, and fire. Then you wait for them to come at you.

Follow up:

The usual follow up is to wait for the targets to get close and then Swipe. If you don’t need to move the pack completely to where you start you might Charge when they get closer. If you used Faerie Fire you will have Growl in reserve if any of your party pulls one of the pack off you as the pull goes down.

Once the pack gets to you and contact is made then you need to do the usual follow ups of pointing the pack in the right direction and positioning yourself where you want to be.

Variations:

Variations include using Line of Sight by hiding around a corner. There is also the ‘hit and run’ which is done by pulling from range, running the other way, and then charging back. Many other variations are possible. The goal here is to move the pack away from a specific area or to position the pack exactly where you want it.

Other use of this ability:

Faerie Fire is a highly effective tool for keeping aggro at range. Firing it repeatedly at something that is not in melee range can be used to keep agro on something you can’t move toward.

Macros and combos:

You might macro a raid mark to it… I prefer mine to be on their own key binding. Since those are your only two ranged abilities there is not much comboing you can do other than variations with charge or growl.

Risks and drawbacks:

All risks of ranged pulls apply. Mainly these risks are that your DPS or heals will do something to ‘pull aggro’ before the pack gets into your melee range.

Other tricks:

Here is a great combo for keeping ranged casters on you if you can’t get them moved into the melee. You wait for the target to ‘pull off’ and then use Growl on it. Immediately after that you use Faerie Fire. The combination of the two means you are now the ‘top threat’ for that target and have a nice little bonus of threat above the next target on the list. This will usually keep the target on you until your cooldowns for Growl and Faerie Fire are complete. You can keep threat this way even if one of your DPS is attacking that target. This is not part of a ranged pull but it is a way you can deal with casters when one is left behind from a ranged pull